Aftershock (37 page)

Swift sat quietly, eyes lidded as if the whole thing was putting him to sleep. But when Fat Face wanted to show the jury a video of the autopsy surgeon sawing off the top of the dead man’s skull, Swift got to his feet.

“Your Honor, with all due respect, this so-called evidence is not only well beyond cumulative, it is a blatant attempt to disgust and sicken the jury. We have conceded—and I will not waste either Your Honor’s or the jury’s time with repeating our proffered stipulation—everything this video could possibly prove. Watching the top of a man’s skull being sawed off is such a horrifying sight that any probative value it might conceivably possess is cosmically outweighed by the prejudice such a sight could inflict against the defendant.”

“Sustained” was all the judge said. When he saw Fat Face open his mouth, he added, “Unless you intend to offer some other perspective that will show how this videotape is necessary to prove
facts which defendant’s counsel has already conceded, you will either move on or rest your case, sir.”

Robbed of his planned grand presentation, Fat Face said, “Could we have a moment, Your Honor?”

The judge just waved his hand in a “Why not?” gesture.

Fat Face and the three other DAs—I mean, deputies—went into conference. I couldn’t hear what they were saying—all I could see was a lot of arm-waving. Finally, Fat Face got up.

“If Your Honor is going to bar—”

“Enough, counsel. This court will not remind you again.”

“The state rests,” Fat Face said, as majestically as any flop-sweaty swine could manage.

S
wift wasted no time. Witness after witness testified—from behind a black mesh screen—that she had been raped by members of Tiger Ko Khai. And that nothing had ever happened as a result.

The prize was the girl who admitted she told the cops that she wasn’t even going to look at a lineup of suspects unless they agreed to prosecute a member of Tiger Ko Khai who had raped her a year before. The SANE nurse on duty an hour past midnight—01:03 was the time in the records Swift had marked for entry as evidence—had verified that the girl had been raped “within a couple of hours prior to examination.”

That girl wasn’t grown yet, but she already had the anger of a person who had been told to “get over it” one too many times. She couldn’t have said it more clearly: no promises from them, no testimony from her.

Like I said, the pick of the litter.

But her place as star witness vanished when Swift called a real star to the stand.

D
anielle played it to the hilt, giving the blade a final kill-twist after she was sure she’d planted it deep enough.

“I’m not like them,” she told the jury, distancing herself from those who lacked her beauty and physical endowments—no black mesh screen for
her
. Making it clear that nobody had raped her. That the train Tiger Ko Khai had pulled was simply an initiation into a special society, run by a special man, who loved her with all his heart. A man named Cameron Taft. “All the girls were after him,” she crowed.

“So your sister was jealous of you?” Swift asked, his voice empty of inflection.

“Look at her.” Danielle pointed. “And look at me. What do
you
think?”

MaryLou’s face was a frozen mask. She looked straight ahead. Not at Danielle. Not at the jury. Not at anything at all. The centers of her eyes were large round dots—they looked like they’d been painted on.

That mask didn’t even crack when Swift slapped Danielle with “I think you’re the ugliest girl I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Fat Face jumped to his feet, but Swift got off first: “I am done with this witness, Your Honor,” the expression on his face telling the jury he was grateful to be relieved of a repulsive but necessary task.

Fat Face had no better luck with Danielle than he’d had with any of the other girls who had testified. Every attempt at getting them to take back what they said only made it worse. And his “I know the last thing you’d ever want to do would be to hurt your sister” had Swift on his feet before Danielle could answer.

“That’s not a question, judge. That’s the prosecutor’s attempt to lead the witness. Or an exhibition of his own delusions.”

“I object!”

“To what?” the judge snapped at Fat Face. “Either rephrase your question so that it
is
a question, or move on.”

“Danielle,” Fat Face coaxed, “would you ever do anything to hurt your big sister?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, for example, would you ever lie to hurt your sister?”

“When did I lie?”

“I’m not saying you have lied, only asking if you
would
lie. To hurt your sister, I mean.”

“I don’t need to lie,” she said scornfully.

Finally, Fat Face gave up. Maybe he didn’t realize he’d just injected pus into the same wound he was trying to bandage, but that would make him the only one in the courtroom who didn’t.

Danielle stalked off the witness stand, switching her hips on the off-chance that anyone mistook her for anything but what she was.

F
ranklin told the jury what he’d heard Danielle say. Since the jury had already heard Danielle tell the same obvious lies, none of the deputies even tried to cross-examine him. Or maybe they realized they’d have as much luck getting anything good for their side out of Franklin as they would trying to throw him out of the witness chair.

When Franklin admitted he’d lie under oath if that would do anything to help MaryLou, that had been the killing blow. Even those deputies realized that anyone who’d tell that much truth wasn’t someone you wanted to try getting to admit they had just lied.

And the tears on the giant’s face when he said that he loved her were more compelling than any testimony could have been.

“Y
ou just did more to save MaryLou’s life than all the rest of us combined,” I told him, after he’d asked me for the tenth time if he did okay.

“You mean that, Mr. Dell?”

“I swear it,” I told the giant, putting my hand over my heart. What I didn’t say was:
I wonder how many of them still think you’re “retarded” now? I wonder how many of the girls wish they had a boyfriend with your kind of love?

“Is it all right if I tell Mr. Spyros what I told today?”

“Absolutely.”

“I know what he’s gonna say, too.”

“What?”

“Mr. Spyros was in the war, you know. A long time ago.”

“And …?” I asked gently. For Franklin, Vietnam would have been a long time ago.

“And he told me once, when you’re in a war, it’s a lot easier to fight if you know who the enemy is. And when I tell him what I said today, he’ll say MaryLou did the right thing.”

“Yeah, he will, Franklin. And he’ll say you did, too.”

“N
ow comes the fun,” Swift told us after court that day. “Tomorrow is the test. But before I put on our experts”—nodding at T.D. and Debbie, who were sitting close together—“I’ve got a little surprise for everyone. A new witness.”

“Another girl who—?”

“No,” he said to Dolly, almost busting at the seams to tell us … something. “A police officer. A detective who’s been on the force almost twenty years.”

“How did you—?”

“He volunteered,” Swift said to me. “Walked right into my office after he saw me on TV. Or maybe it was T.D., I don’t recall. Anyway, what he said was, he’d been waiting for those Tiger Ko Khai rapists to take a fall for years. And even though they weren’t on trial yet, he could give us enough dirt on Cameron Taft to shed some light on just who MaryLou shot that day.”

“Damn!” is all I said. But I made it clear that I was showing respect. I suspected it was T.D.’s TV appearance that had alerted the cop, but I didn’t care—T.D. had enough trophies; this was Swift’s first.

“D
etective, would you tell the jury your full name and title, and give a brief summary of your career?”

The detective told the jury what we already knew. Nothing for the prosecution to object to, but Fat Face managed to dig one out:

“Your Honor, it would be helpful if we knew what the defense is trying to qualify this officer as an expert in.”

Swift acted like he was forcing back a laugh. Then he just said, “If it please the court, the instruction was to call our witness. We have done so. Why the prosecutor believes we are seeking to qualify Detective Lancer as an expert is beyond me.”

“Well?” the judge said, looking at what was left of the rapidly melting Fat Face.

Ten seconds passed. Fat Face sat down.

“May I continue?” Swift asked, rubbing it in. All he got from the judge was a curt nod—men who wear comb-overs have to be careful not to go too far with their nods.

“Do I know Cameron Taft?” Lancer answered Swift’s first question. “The whole department knows Cameron Taft. I probably
arrested him half a dozen times myself. Always on the same charges: sexual assault of a minor.”

Fat Face started to rise, but the “Bring it!” look from Swift slammed him back down.

“Not one of those charges was ever prosecuted,” the detective continued.

“Do you know why?” Swift asked.

“I don’t know as in ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ know, but it’s common knowledge in the department that the DA’s Office won’t take a case unless we bring in a notarized confession, or such a mountain of evidence that they know they can’t possibly lose.”

“I have to object, Your Honor,” Fat Face said. “This man is in no position to state what is ‘common knowledge’—he’s hardly a Gallup Poll.”

Swift responded with a simple “My apologies to the court. May I rephrase?”

Another nod from the bench.

“Detective Lancer, in case it is not clear to all, when you say ‘common knowledge,’ are you speaking of what is common knowledge in this whole community … or are you referring to what is common knowledge within the police department?”

“The department.”

Swift made a “Well?” gesture … and got no takers, not Fat Face, not the judge, either.

“Now, Detective, you can only make an arrest when a crime is committed in your presence or when there’s been a complaint, isn’t that correct? So, if, say, this Cameron Taft raped a hundred minors, and only seven of them came forward, you would only be able to arrest him on those seven complaints?”

“That’s right.”

“Your Honor, I must object. Cameron Taft is not here to defend himself against such accusations.”

“I believe counsel has confused a hypothetical question—one
which the witness is eminently qualified to answer in his capacity as a veteran police officer—with an accusation,” Swift answered.

Once again, the judge endangered his comb-over.

“Did you question Cameron Taft, or did he request an attorney?”

“He never asked for a lawyer, not once. I think he liked playing the game.”

“The game?” Swift asked innocently.

“Sociopaths love to taunt, and Taft was a real beauty at it. He actually confessed more than once, but he made sure he only did it with little hints. Gestures, smirks. He’d make sure I knew he’d done the rapes, and that I couldn’t do a damn thing about them.”

“Your Honor, Detective Lancer may be an expert in police work, but he’s hardly qualified to make a psychiatric diagnosis.”

“May I inquire further?” Swift asked, politely.

Getting the nod again, he asked, “Detective, if you were to remove the word ‘sociopath’ from what you just said, is there another word you would substitute?”

“Sure,” Lancer said.

“And that word would be?”

“ ‘Dirtbag,’ ” Lancer answered, without changing expression.

Fat Face started to rise, then sat down quick, as if the twittering of the jury was a flock of crows headed for his eyes.

“So would it be a fair statement that a local school student familiar with the reputation of Tiger Ko Khai might believe that going to the police would be a futile act?”

“Yes.”

For those girls
, I thought,
the whole town was nothing but a collection of “les collaborateurs,” the kind that Luc had hated with such fierceness. And now my sacred duty is to hate them, too
. But, like so many of my thoughts over so many years, none of that reached my face, or my eyes.

Fat Face was on his feet before Swift sat down.

“Officer, you understand you’re under oath?”

“Yes,” Lancer said, just short of rolling his eyes.

“Is it your statement, under oath, that this office—that is, the Office of the District Attorney—will not prosecute a case unless assured of a guilty verdict?”

“It’s my belief, based on my experience on the force. I’ve been a cop probably ten times longer than you’ve been a deputy DA, so I’ve had plenty of time to develop that belief.”

“Ah. So you admit that you can’t prove a single word you said during your testimony?”

“Prove? I guess I’ll never know, will I? If I make an arrest, and your office doesn’t prosecute, I don’t have a crystal ball—I can’t ‘prove’ what the outcome of any prosecution would be. But I remember a book we all had to read when we first came on the job.
Sex Crimes
, it was called. About the original Special Victims Bureau in New York. Anyway, one line I remember was something like this: ‘Show me a DA with a perfect conviction record, and I’ll show you a DA who cherry-picked his cases.’ ”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Fat Face demanded, determined as always to make things worse for his side.

“To me, it meant that if you want a perfect conviction record you only prosecute the cases you can’t lose. Your office must certainly believe that itself. I’ve testified in God knows how many cases, and the only time I’ve ever been briefed was in the elevator on the way up to the courtroom.”

“Your Honor!”

“What?” the judge snapped.

“I … Withdrawn. Officer, do you know anything about this case? The one we are trying right here?”

“No.”

“Your Honor, I move to strike the witness’s entire testimony on the grounds that it is totally irrelevant to the case at bar.”

“Mr. Swift?” the judge said.

“Your Honor, I believe the relevancy of Detective Lancer’s testimony is already proven and clearly apparent. However, if the defense fails to show the relevance of Detective Lancer’s testimony before we rest our case, I will not oppose the prosecutor’s motion. I ask only that this court accept Detective Lancer’s testimony on a ‘subject to connection’ basis. We called him out of order because he has to leave tomorrow for special FBI training in complex sex-crimes investigation. The training will be in Quantico, Virginia, literally on the other side of the country.